Who Stole My Church!

Have you asked yourself this question? There is a book by a guy named Gordon Mcdonald titled "Who Stole My Church". Now let me be clear, I have not read this book nor do I know what it is about but I have, in fact, asked myself this question. I asked it today, if you can believe it, before I entered the doors of the church which I am currently calling home. Interestingly, they chose today to suggest this book as suggested reading. I read the online exerpts and got a general gist of what the book is probably about. To tell you the truth, I am not completely satisfied with the idea that I should be ok with the church experience with which I am currently familiar.

John the Baptizer, a biblical character with whom we should all be famailiar with, was not a person who found reason to be particularly concerned with the "feelings" of persons outside the circle of current believers. He believed his role was to speak the truth in blunt vernacular and allow the Spirit of God to do Its work in the hearts of the listening audience. He was able to use blunt language and the Word Of God and people still heard God's voice speaking when if, in fact, they were receptive to the words in the first place.

I am personally concerned that if we as a local church don't bluntly preach the Word of God in a clear manner as in examples like John the Baptizer, we are doing the
currently unreached a disservice and they will have to find the truth some other way.

I have personally sat in the audience of a preacher who consistently preached the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse and found that the scriptures themselves spoke far more intensly to my soul than some poor individual trying to determine what might be an appropriate series of subjects to talk about and support with appropriate scriptural texts.

Don't you think that the Creator allowed the current scriptural text for a reason? Isn't it all there for our benefit? Why then does the clergy apparently completely ignore the "difficult" text and tend to only talk about the easy stuff? If the status quo was to teach verse by verse, there would not be freedom to ignore the more difficult passages.

This is my belief, take it or leave it. The scriptures will always talk about whatever is going on or can go on in one's life and if God's prophet, whomever he may be, is willing to proclaim His Word, in the literal manner in which it was intended, it will not return void. It is not his job nor should it even be his concern whether or not the message is milky enough for the present audience.